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Culture: Richard Brooks: Biteback

Scoop. Woody Allen’s recently shot movie is to be called just that. It’s not to be confused with the Evelyn Waugh novel, but it is, similarly, about journalism — well, an American journalism student (Scarlett Johansson) who falls for an Englishman in London.

This sounds rather like Match Point, the Allen film filmed in London in 2004 and set for release in January.

It, too, has a dashing Englishman and Johansson as the American love interest.

Both Scoop and Match Point have BBC Films’ financial backing. But why is the British Broadcasting Corporation investing in Woody Allen — an American director who was brilliant in his prime, but hasn’t made a great movie for more than a decade? I think it’s because BBC Films’ head honcho, David Thompson, is an Allen doppelgänger.

The BBC defends the Allen movies as “British” in the strict sense that they were shot here. Okay. But why